8 VBoxManage With --flags you can optionally specify additional behavior (you can combine several by separating them with commas): – TRANSIENT: the value will not be stored with the VM data when the VM exits – RDONLYGUEST: the value can only be changed by the host, but the guest can only read it – RDONLYHOST: reversely, the value can only be changed by the guest, but the host can only read it – READONLY: a combination of the two, the value cannot be changed at all. • wait vm pattern --timeout timeout: This waits for a particular value de- scribed by “pattern” to change or to be deleted or created. The pattern rules are the same as for the “enumerate” subcommand above. 8.29 VBoxManage guestcontrol The “guestcontrol” commands allow you to control certain things inside a guest from the host. Please see chapter 4.7, Guest control, page 68 for an introduction. Generally, the syntax is as follows: VBoxManage guestcontrol command The following subcommands are available (where vm, in each case, can either be a VM name or a VM UUID, as with the other VBoxManage commands): • execute, which allows for executing a program/script (process) which is already installed and runnable on the guest. This command only works while a VM is up and running and has the following syntax: VBoxManage guestcontrol exec[ute] vmname|uuid path to program --username name --password password [--arguments "arguments"] [--environment "NAME=VALUE [NAME=VALUE]"] [--flags flags] [--timeout msec] [--verbose] [--wait-for exit,stdout,stderr||] where the parameters mean: uuid|vmname The VM UUID or VM name. Mandatory. path to program Absolute path and process name of process to execute in the guest, e.g. C:\Windows\System32\calc.exe –arguments “arguments“ One or more arguments to pass to the process being exe- cuted. Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in quotation marks. More than one --arguments at a time can be specified to keep the command line tidy. –environment “NAME=VALUE“ One or more environment variables to be set or unset. By default, the new process in the guest will be created with the standard environment of the guest OS. This option allows for modifying that environment. To set/modify a variable, a pair of NAME=VALUE must be specified to unset a certain variable, the name with no value must set, e.g. NAME=. Arguments containing spaces must be enclosed in quotation marks. More than one --environment at a time can be specified to keep the command line tidy. –flags flags Additional flags to set. This is not used at the moment. 127